Recombinant Melody: Ten Things to Love About Willaert's Music

Abstract

Willaert's music was much celebrated in its own time. Today, however, musicologists find little to praise outside of its sonorous richness and sen­ sitivity to text. l Its seamlessness and contrapuntal density seem to be re­ spected but not loved. Michele Fromson writes that in spite of widespread and continued historical interest in his music, individual have had a difficult time entering the musical mainstream. With the exception of a handful of tuneful chansons, madrigals and motets, few compositions have gained favor with modern performers or listeners, raising perplexing questions about the aesthetic quality of his music that still await satisfactory answers. 2 In the following pages, I propose that the powerful expressive poten­ tial of this music lies beneath the apparently seamless surface in the details of its contrapuntal complexity. Singling out a handful of especially tune­ ful pieces is a dead end-most ofWillaert's music is melodically very uni­ form. However, it is this very uniformity that permits the contrapuntal manipulations that are the basis for an expressiveness based not on melody alone, but on combinations of melodies. Performers willing to examine the details of its construction and draw conclusions about Willaert's inten­ tions will discover a highly expressive music, leading to lively performance, filled with contrast. The key to these contrapuntal manipulations is the recombination of tiny melodic fragments. 3 One ofWillaert's techniques of recombination is to splice motives together in new pitch relationships. In the Renaissance this technique was called inganno, and I will begin with a description of the earliest reference to it by Willaert's most famous pupil, Gioseffo Zarlino.